France wants to embrace the very American concept of “le doggie bag”

France has never taken to the “doggie bag,” the practice born during World War II in the US of bringing leftover scraps home for pets, which evolved into taking uneaten food home for later human consumption.

This may be easier said that done. Doggie bags are seen as the mark of “boorish Anglo-Saxon diners,” as AFP puts it. French portions are not as enormous as those in many American restaurants, and French culture doesn’t embrace the idea of dinner as a continuous event. One restauranteur in Lyon has said he packs one doggie bag per week at most—out of 500 customers. “They were much more likely to take home what was left in their bottle of wine,” he told the New York Times.

Like many French people I was raised with the instruction, ‘You will finish what I put on your plate’. So even now when I go out to eat, no matter the size of the portion, I finish everything even if I’m full. So doggie bags are simply not part of the French way of doing things.

Even if they can shed the stigma in France, there is still one thing left to figure out: What to call them? So far, in the few places they exist, they still go by the Franglais of “le doggie bag.”